In conventional long-term evolution (LTE) wireless systems, transmission power of a wireless signal is capped in each orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) symbol to the maximum long term average (LTA) power level specified for a transmission time interval (TTI or subframe). FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a transmission power per-OFDM symbol over one TTI in a conventional LTE system. In FIGS. 1A and 1B, it is assumed that the power amplifier for providing the transmission power has been set to a limit of 30 W for the TTI. In conventional LTE systems, the transmission power limit for the TTI is the same as a long-term average power limit over many TTIs. Each OFDM symbol in FIG. 1A has a corresponding column in FIG. 1B, which shows the assignment of power to particular channels of the LTE system. Although the power amplifier is capable of producing power above the 30 W limit (e.g., the power amplifier could produce a maximum instantaneous power larger than the 30 W long-term average limit), conventional LTE systems do not allow the total power for each of the OFDM symbols to exceed the 30 W long term average limit. Thus, the average power over each TTI is less than 30 W. For example, as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B, none of the individual OFDM symbols exceed 30 W, and the average power over one TTI is 24.28 W.
As a result of the above described power scheme, conventional LTE systems are not capable of providing additional transmission power greater than the long-term average limit, even for a time interval as short as one OFDM symbol. Instead of providing additional transmission power, the original transmission power is clipped, a user equipment (UE) is dropped from the system, or several of the UEs are assigned a reduced power to conform to the long-term power limit. This results in reduced performance of the LTE system.